(Auteur) Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) precise point positioning (PPP) requires continuous carrier-phase observations to achieve a solution of high precision. Precisely correcting cycle slips caused by signal interruptions is crucial for recovering the data continuity. Most of the existing approaches usually employ only data of one epoch after the interruption for real-time cycle slip processing. In this study, we propose to introduce and estimate cycle slip parameters together with standard PPP parameters, such as position, ionospheric delay, and ambiguities in the case that possible cycle slips are detected, using a Kalman-filter-based procedure with the undifferenced and uncombined PPP model. The integer search strategy is used to fix cycle slips. To reduce the probability of wrong integer fixing, a strict integer validation threshold is suggested. As a result, it is not easy to fix all cycle slips with only one epoch of data. Our approach can be easily extended to use multi-epoch observations to enhance the cycle slip estimation. Once the cycle slips are correctly determined, continuous PPP can be achieved instantaneously. This new approach is tested and validated with three groups of experiments using GPS and GLONASS stations operated by the International GNSS Service from DOY 1–10, 2017, and a real vehicle kinematic data. Numerous experimental results showed that the proposed method can correctly fix the cycle slips for more than 99.5% of epochs suffering from re-convergence. On average, this method takes observation information from about 1.5–2.5 epochs to fix cycle slips and realize rapid re-convergence. Consequently, positioning performance is significantly improved.

(auteur) In multi-GNSS integration, fixing inter-system double-difference ambiguities to integers is still a challenge due to the existence of inter-system biases (ISB) when mixed types of GNSS receivers are used. It has been shown that when ISB is known, the inter-system ambiguities can be fixed and the reliability of ambiguity fixing can be improved significantly, especially under poor conditions when the number of observed satellites is small. In traditional methods, the intra-system ambiguity is fixed first; then, the ISB is estimated to ultimately fix the inter-system ambiguity. In our work, we use the particle filter-based method to estimate the ISB parameter and fix the inter-system ambiguities to integers at the same time. This method shows higher reliability and higher ambiguity fixing rate. Nevertheless, the existing particle filter approach for ISB parameter estimation is a one-dimensional algorithm. When satellites from three or more systems are observed, there are two or more ISB parameters. We extend the current one-dimensional particle filter approach to multi-dimensional case and estimate multi-ISB parameters in this study. We first present a multi-dimensional particle filter approach that can estimate multi-ISB parameters simultaneously. We also show that the RATIO values can be employed to judge the quality of multi-dimensional ISB values. Afterward, a two-dimensional particle filter approach is taken as an example to validate this approach. For example, in the experiment of GPS L5, Galileo E5a and QZSS L5 integration with 6 satellites using the IGS baseline SIN0-SIN1, only three ambiguities are resolved to integer when the ISBs are unknown. The integer ambiguity fixing rate is 41.0% with 53% of the ambiguity-fixed solutions having positioning errors larger than 3 cm. However, when our approach is adopted, the number of integer ambiguity parameters increases to five. The integer ambiguity fixing rate increases to 99.7% with 100% of ambiguity-fixed solutions having positioning errors smaller than 3 cm.

(auteur) High-precision single-receiver positioning requires the provision of reliable network-derived corrections. Care must therefore be exercised to continuously check the quality of the corrections and to detect the possible presence of mis-modeled biases in the network data. In network-RTK or its state-space implementation, PPP-RTK, quality control of the solutions is executed in two separate phases: the network component and the user component. Once confidence in the network-derived solutions is declared, a subset of the solutions is sent as corrections to a single-receiver user, thereby allowing the user to separately check the integrity of his network-aided model. In such a two-step integrity monitoring procedure, an intermediate step is missing, the integrity monitoring of the corrections themselves. It is the goal of this contribution to provide a quality control procedure for GNSS parameter solutions at the correction level, and to measure the impact a missed detection bias has on the (ambiguity-resolved) user position. New detection test statistics are derived with which the single-receiver user can check the overall validity of the corrections even before applying them to his data. A small-scale network of receivers is utilized to provide numerical insights into the detectability of mis-modeled biases using the proposed detectors and to analyze the impact of such biases on the user positioning performance.

(auteur) Despite the benefits of integer ambiguity resolution (IAR) in precise point positioning (PPP), observation outages and harsh signal environments still impact float ambiguity estimation in kinematic surveying, consequently resulting in ambiguity-fixed failure. The inertial navigation system (INS) is an autonomous and spontaneous positioning one, which could provide continuous and superior positioning accuracy over short time. Thus, the INS attains more accurate position than code solution. Moreover, the tight integration of INS and PPP is capable of continuous operation where there are less than four satellites available. These advantages can improve float ambiguity estimation and assist in re-initializing the interrupted ambiguity and PPP solution. Based on the good quality of float ambiguity, the ambiguity dilution precision (ADOP) and the size of integer ambiguity search space are reduced, and then, the IAR-PPP is improved. In this work, the INS aiding effect on IAR-PPP was revealed by the sufficient theoretical analysis and performance assessment. A ring laser gyroscope-based navigation-grade IMU and a fiber optic gyroscope-based tactical-grade IMU were utilized to conduct experiments in an open-sky environment and urban area. The assessment adopted the following aspects of ADOP, bootstrapping success rate, time to fix and position errors. It is found that IAR-PPP with INS aiding achieves an enhanced performance during GPS outage when INS could deliver a superior accurate position. For the navigation- and tactical-grade IMU, the INS-aided ambiguity re-fixing performance can be classified as three levels: significant improvement for the outage duration less than 10 s, moderate improvement for the outage duration from 10 to 60 s and a little or zero improvement for the outage duration longer than 60 s. From the viewpoint of the INS-predicted position domain, an accuracy better than 0.1 m and 1.0 m is required for the significant and moderate improvement, while one can only achieve a little or zero improvement if the position error is larger than 1.0 m. Besides, we also performed the INS-aided IAR-PPP in real urban environment. For the urban environments, the span of clean data is often shorter than 30 min due to intermittent signal interruptions; thus, ambiguity re-fixing for PPP always fails. INS-aided information could bridge the data gaps and achieve fast ambiguity re-fixing. In summary, INS aiding information is capable of improving IAR-PPP performance significantly over a short GPS outage.

(auteur) TERIA is a NRTK service which enables the achievement of centimeter accuracy within a few seconds. The first limitation which is reported by the user at our assistance is that to have access to the service the customers need an Internet connection. Indeed the NTRIP protocol is based on http and need a TCP/IP connection to enable to connect to our server to receive the corrections. To be able to counter this limitation we have to work to change the format of the corrections. In NRTK our server needs the position of the rover to send the right corrections. Another approach consists to use PPP, which can be broadcasted but such services need 20 to 30 minutes to reach centimeter accuracy. So we work to combine PPP and NRTK to enable to have the NRTK performance with the advantage of PPP. For that we developped PPP-RTK corrections, which is PPP augmented with ionosphere and troposphere model. So we were able to broadcast all data to correct GNSS pseudo range in an area. Another limitation was that the rover is not able to use PPP-RTK corrections as it’s not standardize. So we decided to counter also this limitation using a Library which can be installed in the rover and convert the PPP-RTK corrections in NRTK type VRS corrections which is fully standard in RTCM3.So our approach allowed us to broadcast corrections to enable GNSS rover to achieve centimeter accuracy in less than one minute. So we started a service transmitting such corrections through a geostationary satellite to cover area that are not covered by internet terrestrial networks (GSM, Wi-Fi ...). Also PPP-RTK has a lot of advantages to compared to NRTK and will certainly become a standard in the future, but as every new development it needs time for the industrial companies to agree on a standard.